1952: OXO (EDSAC)
Category: Mainframe
The Electronical Delay Storage Automatic Calculator of the University of Cambridge was actually finished in 1949. However, for the history of computer and video games it became significant in 1952, thanks to one man: Alexander S. Douglas. That year, for his thesis on human-computer interaction, he wrote the first game for a general-purpose computer: OXO, or Noughts and Crosses.
EDSAC is described in Wikipedia as “the first practical stored-program electronic computer.” It was a unique device in the strictest sense of the word, as the only one ever built was located at the University of Cambridge. There is your answer on why it took some time for the public to find out about this early game.
The EDSAC was equipped with a CRT that could display the contents of one of its memory delay lines in a 35×16 grid. In A.S. Douglas’ game, one of those lines would be manipulated so that displaying its contents on the CRT would yield the representation of a standard tic-tac-toe playfield. The program also allowed the player to choose whether (s)he or the EDSAC would take the first turn, and provided an artificially intelligent opponent that would always win if possible.
Play it
On the following page, you can find an EDSAC simulator for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. It includes some programs, among them the original OXO. The dial is used for input, while the text box at the top right represents the output on the teletype (hence the speed and sounds.) Note the clock, which represents how long the calculations would have taken on the real EDSAC (you can even activate a real-time option if you want to.)
Get the EDSAC Simulator
Watch it
Links
- Memorial page for the 50th Anniversary of the EDSAC computer
- Wikipedia article
1952: Checkers program
Christopher S. Strachey writes a Checkers program for the Ferranti Mark I computer. Arthur Samuel would adapt this for the early IBM 701 series mainframe later that year.
1951: NIMROD
Category: Laboratory
The first computer built specifically to play a game. The size of a couple of refrigerators, its purpose was to convince visitors to a science exhibition of the advantages of the new digital computers. It was built by Ferranti, and based on their Mark I computer model. All it did was play the game of NIM against a human player. Wikipedia has nice articles on the rules of the game, as well as NIMROD, with a very nice sketch of it.
1947: Cathode ray tube amusement device
Category: Laboratory
Patented by a Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and an Estle Ray Mann in January 1947, this first idea of an electronic game device was probably heavily influenced by the fact that most electronic technology has been developed for war purposes. The aim of the game was to direct a missile to targets on the CRT. The game consists entirely of analogue components. Players would influence the trajectory and speed of the missile with knobs. As it was not yet possible to display targets on the CRT, they were actually overlays that one put on the screen manually. The device itself used 8 vacuum tubes.
Apart from the patent itself, information on this contraption is pretty scarce on the Internet. There are no moving images or simulators of the game that I know of.
